Mentat:I think that interview pretty much confirmed everything we thought about Romney. I can see Clinton taking time to greet the staff while Romney and his buddies ignore them. Even if Clinton is disingenuous, at least he has enough empathy to realize that pressing the common flesh is good politics.

"I handed him a diet Coke with lemon on it," Prouty told Huffington Post, "because I was told that that's what he drank. ... He took it and turned and didn't say anything. ... I presented him the exact right drink that he wanted ... Had it there, sitting there on a napkin. He took it out of my hand and turned his back without a 'thank you' or anything else. ... You can tell a lot about someone the way they take a drink from you. ... [Romney] took it and just turned his back."

yup. it's the little things that tell you a lot about someone's character.

Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

Former bartender here. I don't expect anyone to lavishly praise my concoctions (especially if it's just a Diet Coke), but a simple nod or even a verbal "thanks" is always appreciated as a common courtesy. If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd still be gracious to "the help." These people work their asses off. I know I did.

Guys like Romney never learned that lesson. For him, the world exists to serve him and he needs not show gratitude. People like that always got on my nerves (and they were invariably horrible tippers, no matter their personal fortune).

I think that interview pretty much confirmed everything we thought about Romney. I can see Clinton taking time to greet the staff while Romney and his buddies ignore them. Even if Clinton is disingenuous, at least he has enough empathy to realize that pressing the common flesh is good politics.

Back in 2001 I was doing some work for the contract food service company at Middle Tennessee State University, where, if you'll recall, Al Gore taught a class in government following the 2000 election. At the end of the semester, they held a banquet in his honor, and I got picked to work the floor.

Al didn't show up until a few minutes before it was time for him to go on, after everyone had eaten. When security came in the kitchen to check things out, they just kind of hung back, then Al walked in and stood beside the door while the guy giving his intro speech was rambling on. I remember him facing the wall, leaning against it with his arm above his head and his face buried in his elbow, as if he was just flat out tired.

So anyway, the seven or eight of us in the kitchen that liked Al kind of hung around near him in a semicircle. He turned around and saw us, and then he sighed, straightened his shoulders, and smiled. He walked to each of us and gave us a firm handshake, and said "It's very good to see you!"

I think it was about the best thing he could have said, since we weren't technically "meeting", but it said so much about him that he took those few seconds to show a bit of appreciation for the staff. I'm not about to say that Dubya wouldn't have done the same, but I cannot for the life of me imagine Romney ever doing something like that in the back room away from any cameras. Al didn't have to do that, he wasn't running for office or anything, he just seemed like as tired as he was, he would give us a few seconds of his time just because.

By the way, in person, that man is huge. I am not a small man, but he dwarfed me. You could see his bicep bulging against his suit when he reached out to shake hands.

How we wound up with the cheerleader instead of the football player I'll never quite understand.

Now this isn't entirely true. Close, but not entirely. The conservative position is that the mother will work harder to provide for her child and be stronger, wealthier and more free for the effort.What they don't really specify is where or what she's going to work harder at, and their policies favor outsourcing unskilled labor, repealing the minimum wage, AND defunding education, eliminating all the avenues she would have to work harder, and thus condemning her child to death anyway.Just saying they want the kid to die doesn't begin to do justice to their hypocrisy and cruelty.

Silly Jesus:The opposition to it was just some libby lib saying "NUH UH!"

Thanks for the link...but, I found the study on my own. And, reading through it, I have to agree with the people who find the abstract unconvincing.

If there's an important claim in the study, it's this: In some cases, the cost of earning an additional $100 of income is a loss of benefits double that amount (Figure 3a, section E).

That claim seems undeniably true. But, it doesn't actually support your argument that people who use government assistance are "worthless" or "parasites."

Instead, the study seems to show that government assistance programs are poorly designed. And, quite frankly, a lot of that poor design has to do with right wingnut interference.

A person should NEVER be penalized for earning more money. That is, every extra dollar earned should be worth more than relying on government to provide a service. But, under systems heavily influenced by Republican thinking, the opposite happens. In fact, the Republican ransom for keeping people out of poverty seems to be a system in which people are condemned to poverty.

The problem isn't government assistance. The problem is that government assistance has had to accommodate Republican "thinking." The disaster has been "conservative" ideology.

Take Medicaid for example. A poor mother is going to avoid making more money if an increase in income means that her child will lack medical care because her wages are too high to qualify for government assistance and too low to pay for the doctors and medications needed to keep her child alive. The liberal position is to give the mother support for much longer. The conservative position is to let the kid die.

Silly Jesus:Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

Perhaps there's a reason for this.

If you replace "welfare queens" with "gun owners" it easily becomes hypocrisy. They identify a small minority that take advantage of the system. Fine. But when others point out that that the last mass shooting was done with 30 round magazines and a stupid AR, then IT'S MAH GUN RIGHTZ.

Inexpensive portable video cameras since the late 80's.Phones that can record video for at least 10 years.Dozens of examples of politicians, celebrities and police and others recorded saying or doing really dumb stuff.

And yet we still see these folks acting as if it never occurred to them that what they say and do will get recorded and repeated.

BarkingUnicorn:I wouldn't change the progressive tax system. But don't pretend it doesn't penalize the earning of more money.

Seriously? Income tax is not a penalty. It's a f*cking bill. It's the bill for living in a civil society. If you don't agree with how we split the brackets, let's argue about that. If you think they're too high because we spend too much, let's argue about that, too. If you think they shouldn't be progressive, I think you're an idiot, but I'll have that argument too. But if you seriously consider income tax to be a "penalty on working harder", then you're dancing into Tea Party fractal wrongness territory.

That's true. Without question. The problem is that you're missing the reason for the failure of these programs. It IS NOT that the recipients of assistance are worthless; it's not that they're parasites; it's that "conservative" thinking has made dependence a better choice than independence. These people are being absolutely rational.

And, the point that "conservatives" miss is that elimination of government assistance would not solve the problem. It would turn the poor into wage slaves or starve them to death (which, honestly, might be the goal).

The best solution is the liberal one: give assistance...but, make sure that independence holds real benefits for people at the lowest end of the income scale.

BarkingUnicorn:eraser8: A person should NEVER be penalized for earning more money.

There goes the progressive tax system.

Nope.

In a progressive tax system, you will NEVER have less in take-home pay because your gross income increases. Not by virtue of the tax structure, at least. NEVER.

I have quite a few friends who are physicians and who are super smart people...but, they don't seem to understand the first thing about tax policy. I've had to disabuse more than a few of them that they will not suffer a financial penalty by breaking into a new tax bracket.

For some reason, these highly educated and highly intelligent people have been fooled into thinking that ALL of their income will be taxed at a higher rate if their income exceeds a given amount. It's almost fun watching their faces contort into masks of disbelief when the realities of the marginal tax rate system are explained to them.

NotARocketScientist:Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

I wonder how much of it has nothing to do with the poverty line. Probably only a small amount. When I was in the army, I didn't pay taxes on the income I earned while deployed. Nearly half of my military stint was in a war zone of some sort. So all deployed military aren't paying those taxes. They are a part of that 47%. Then I went to college, and the federal grants and scholarships weren't taxed. The GI Bill wasn't taxed. So all students who live off of grants, scholarships, or military education benefits aren't paying taxes. They are a part of that 47%. I just found out I was accepted into a PhD program (I start next fall, yay!), and with that comes a stipend for living expenses. I wonder if that will be taxed, or if grad students are all a part of that 47 percent.

Silly Jesus:NotARocketScientist: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

Does it bother me that so many people have no skills? Yes. Very much so. I pay for their laziness.

Welcome to the free market. Everyone looks at those below them as undeserving, unskilled, and lazy. Maybe you'd be happier if we were all be slaves to one Ubermensch.

Also, unless you were raised by wolves, you benefited from your ancestors' work. They provided you with opportunity. Now if only there were a large segment of American society that had all their opportunity stolen, leaving almost nothing to pass down...

Romney left the impression that he would do or say anything that it took to get elected, except of course, release more tax returns. I don't even think Romney was able to remember what his own true positions on the issues were by the time November rolled around.

AdolfOliverPanties:As much as his dad seemed to be a decent guy, one must wonder if he was an elitist asshole as a father, teaching Mitt to never address the help directly.

It seems to me that there's often a huge difference in attitude between people who have to work for their fortune vs. people who inherit it. Mitt's father would fall in the former category as he worked his way up from humble beginnings, whereas Mitt falls in the second because he got a huge boost at the start of his career from his father's fortune and never knew what it was like to be poor.

Parthenogenetic:But regardless, the LDS church forbids tea and coffee, not caffeine per se. Caffeine use is not encouraged, perhaps, but it is not forbidden.

Typical hair-splitting religious gobbledegook. How this religion survived the translation of the Rosetta Stone is one of life's great mysteries -- right up there with why people making less than a million dollars ever vote Republican.

Cletus C.:You sir, will never work at my fundraiser, thank you very much.

Discretion is the first tenet of good help.

you know, generally speaking I go out of my way to show the wait staff common courtesy and basic polite behavior. if nothing else it prevents them from spitting in my food. of course, if YOU want to be jerks to the people who serve you that's your call. spittle and stale bread really spice up that expensive steak dinner, or so i'm told.

Weaver95:"I handed him a diet Coke with lemon on it," Prouty told Huffington Post, "because I was told that that's what he drank. ... He took it and turned and didn't say anything. ... I presented him the exact right drink that he wanted ... Had it there, sitting there on a napkin. He took it out of my hand and turned his back without a 'thank you' or anything else. ... You can tell a lot about someone the way they take a drink from you. ... [Romney] took it and just turned his back."

yup. it's the little things that tell you a lot about someone's character.

Some people might think this is petty, but having waited tables and tended bar, I think this guy is spot on. It's absolutely amazing how differently people act when you're serving them. Lots of people are just as nice as they are otherwise, but at least as many completely change when they're in that position. And yes, it truly does say a lot about what a person is really like.

GAT_00:It would have never occurred to Mitt Romney to say thank you to a bartender.

nope. little people don't matter. only the rich elites matter, at least to the GOP insiders anyways. the fact that being openly contemptuous of damn near everyone in the united states might cost them the election simply never occurred to Romney. little people mean nothing. they're 'little people' for a reason.

AdolfOliverPanties:As much as his dad seemed to be a decent guy, one must wonder if he was an elitist asshole as a father, teaching Mitt to never address the help directly.

Mitt's a pretty good example of second-generation rich. First generation worked hard for the money. They don't want their kids to go through the same kind of struggle. Then there's the inferiority complex a kid can have by being raised by someone who accomplished a lot on his own, plus the snubs from really old money, and the end result is an ass.

Silly Jesus:BarkingUnicorn: Silly Jesus: BarkingUnicorn: Turbo Cojones: Silly Jesus: NotARocketScientist: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

Does it bother me that so many people have no skills? Yes. Very much so. I pay for their laziness.

Here comes the derp...

It's just the natural outcome of capitalism. Wealth flows into a few hands, leaving the source of wealth in poverty. The game is in danger. Government redistributes wealth to keep the game going.

LOL

Capitalism works just like the water cycle.

Welfare states aren't capitalistic.

Clouds aren't rivers, but both carry water and complement each other. Welfare is the cloud, capitalism the river, money is water.

cameroncrazy1984:Silly Jesus: So having 8 babies while being unmarried and living off of a check from the government is "BECAUSE SLAVERY!!"?

I don't see anything in there mentioning slavery. Nor does it mention that having 8 babies is the norm for welfare recipients.

It's conditioned response. Years of talk radio and idiot relatives have gotten SJ to immediately associate "welfare" with "unmarried black woman with 8 kids who drives a Cadillac and has a big screen TV, paid for by taxpayers."

stoli n coke:dickfreckle: Former bartender here. I don't expect anyone to lavishly praise my concoctions (especially if it's just a Diet Coke), but a simple nod or even a verbal "thanks" is always appreciated as a common courtesy. If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd still be gracious to "the help." These people work their asses off. I know I did.

Guys like Romney never learned that lesson. For him, the world exists to serve him and he needs not show gratitude. People like that always got on my nerves (and they were invariably horrible tippers, no matter their personal fortune).

This. I'm friends with some of the bartenders at my local watering hole. After closing, it's not uncommon for them to complain about some rich a-hole running up a $300 check, and then leaving a tip of ten bucks or less.

15% is standard, 25% is classy, and 30% guarantees your drink is waiting for you before you get to the bar.

Plus, it's just a good idea not to piss off the people handling your food and drinks.

I've always said that you can be a crap tipper but a fun person, but you can't be a crap tipper and an asshole to boot. Now in this case, it's assumed that someone from Romney's camp was signing the bill rather than Romney himself, but I can almost guarantee the bartender got screwed in some way. Dude makes $5 an hour.

CSB alert: Paul McCartney (of whom I'm a huge fan) not only stiffed me on a tip, but the entire tab, including the cocktail waitresses.

People enjoy saying that bartending is easy, but it isn't. Who do you think lugs those kegs? Runs to get ice while 40 people are screaming at him for a drink? Cleans up the sh*tstorm at the end of the night? It's a fun job much of the time, if you work in the right place, but it's still manual labor. If you aren't going to tip, at least say "Thank you." Or, as noted above, give a polite nod. This 'nozzle did neither.

Silly Jesus:clambam: Silly Jesus: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

Wow, really? There's an actual academic study that confirms the welfare state is a slave plantation? I believe you! Shout it from the rooftops!

Essentially, yes.

Finding a job, wedding and stopping having kids are all discouraged.

Citation needed. It's funny how you folks can call a group of voters who essentially control electoral outcomes at this point a bunch of freeloading losers and then act surprised when they fail to vote the way you want them to. Has it occurred to you that, rather than them being parasites you think they are, you people might be just kind of stupid?

dickfreckle:Former bartender here. I don't expect anyone to lavishly praise my concoctions (especially if it's just a Diet Coke), but a simple nod or even a verbal "thanks" is always appreciated as a common courtesy. If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd still be gracious to "the help." These people work their asses off. I know I did.

Guys like Romney never learned that lesson. For him, the world exists to serve him and he needs not show gratitude. People like that always got on my nerves (and they were invariably horrible tippers, no matter their personal fortune).

This. I'm friends with some of the bartenders at my local watering hole. After closing, it's not uncommon for them to complain about some rich a-hole running up a $300 check, and then leaving a tip of ten bucks or less.

15% is standard, 25% is classy, and 30% guarantees your drink is waiting for you before you get to the bar.

Plus, it's just a good idea not to piss off the people handling your food and drinks.

And as far as welfare and food stamps go, well I'm ok with helping people out. I'd rather we all pitch in for the few that can't or won't work than worry about a shiatload of starving and desperate people roaming around and what they would do to feed themselves or their children. You can't tell me you wouldn't become a criminal to keep your kids fed if there was no other way.

I think there is an idea out there about the typical person on assistance. Maybe they should bring back the soup kitchens of the Great Depression because then everyone would see what people on assistance look like.

My ex and I were both working full time and after paying our $550 in rent plus utilities, we couldn't even afford shopping at Aldis but we made too much at minimum wage to qualify for assistance. Had my parents not fed us I don't know what we would have done. It was just one rough year and within 3 years we had recovered enough and moved up enough in pay that we could afford a new 180k home. Not everyone making a low wage is a loser or a deadbeat, and it didn't make us lazy to have my parents feeding us, it actually motivated us more to do better.

ox45tallboy:[kfmb.images.worldnow.com image 512x326]"I'm not concerned about the very poor, there is a safety net there."

That was one of the best lines from the 47% video. "It's not my job to care about those people."

That's what makes me love this story so much. This destroyed Romney precisely because there was no chicanery behind it. It wasn't a James O' Keefe hack job or an organized swiftboat attack. It was just Romney being Romney. An incredibly powerful man giving his best sales pitch to some of the most powerful people in the country. A fascinating glimpse into how the powerful view the rest of the country.

And Romney was such an insulated twerp that it took him weeks to take it back. Also because a good chunk of the Republican Party gave him a big thumbs up and said "You do man Mitt! HATE THE POOR HARDER!"

My mom ran the foodservice at a university in Pennsylvania when Bill Clinton was running for his second term. He was doing a speech at the college and was going to eat there.

Thing was, none of the wait staff actually got to take the food in to the prez. They weren't going to have a chance to meet him (and personally, regardless of politics, it is kind of cool to meet the president).

Anyway, before they sent dessert in, which was some fruit thing, my mom (OK...and you may thing this totally crazy, but it's absolutely true) took a banana with the "Dole" sticker still on it and put it on the plate with a note underneath on a napkin that said "Hope this Dole makes your day".

But, she didn't hear anything. She and the rest of the staff were really disappointed that they weren't going to meet Bill. In the meantime, my mom struck up a conversation with one of the security detail (my mom was gregarious and exceptionally likable) and eventually told him that she was disappointed that she didn't get to meet Bill.

Apparently, this got back to the prez. He jumped out of the back of his limo and into the kitchen, secret service in tow trying to catch him. He barked, "Who's the lady who put this banana on my plate?"

Mom started laughing and they chatted for a minute. I have a FANTASTIC picture of her, Bill, the executive chef and the head server (which I won't post).

That's why Bill got elected. He's a charmer to the core and, from what I've heard, a genuinely nice guy.

BarkingUnicorn:TopoGigo: BarkingUnicorn: I wouldn't change the progressive tax system. But don't pretend it doesn't penalize the earning of more money.

Seriously? Income tax is not a penalty. It's a f*cking bill. It's the bill for living in a civil society. If you don't agree with how we split the brackets, let's argue about that. If you think they're too high because we spend too much, let's argue about that, too. If you think they shouldn't be progressive, I think you're an idiot, but I'll have that argument too. But if you seriously consider income tax to be a "penalty on working harder", then you're dancing into Tea Party fractal wrongness territory.

Did you miss my very first sentence even though you quoted it above? If you earn more money, your marginal tax rate goes up. You keep less of the additional money that you earn. That's a penalty. Take the bad with the good but don't pretend that bad is good; it makes you look foolish or dishonest.

Words have connotations as well as denotations. It's not a penalty. Yes, it's true that for each $10k you gross, you net less. This is not done to penalize higher earners*; it's done to keep the lower earners from starving to death. It's also done for pragmatic reasons. The money taxed from low-income workers comes from money they would be spending. The money taxed from high-income workers comes from money they would be hoarding. Thus, it's better for the economy to tax higher earners more. Whether it's more fair to do so is a matter of opinion, but I think the overwhelming weight of evidence falls on the side of it being more fair.

*Yes, we often talk about taxing the rich as punishment, or their just deserts. This is merely venting at the appalling income and opportunity inequality in this country. Almost nobody really believes that we should punish people just for being rich.

I liked when he made fun of the NASCAR guys wearing ponchos out in the rain. "I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks." Romney was practically a Disney villain.

The only humor the guy understands is being a dick, and due to his power and influence he seldom suffered any sort of backlash for it. Rich Republicans have been so coddled by demanding everyone be "fair and balanced" to their douchey tendencies, they don't know how to even pretend to be human beings anymore.

TopoGigo:I personally believe that we're pretty stupid about how we spend our money, and I'd like a top-down reboot of what our government does for us.

That's definitely something to discuss. The Constitution has been in effect longer than any other existing government on the planet. Many newly forming (or re-forming) nations are no longer using the US Constitution as a basis for their own Constitution, as they feel there are better ways of doing things. The most commonly used framework nowadays is actually the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It's obvious that what's happening now cannot sustain itself. We've had disagreement before, but right now the minority party refuses to allow the country to be run unless they get their way. Perhaps we do need consider a top-down change in our government.

what_now:I waitressed my way through college. I've also worked retail, customer service, and sales. I've been a cashier, a house painter, a temp and a telemarketer.

People who are rude or dismissive of the help can fark off. This is my first test of a person's character. I have no idea how a politician can act like that. It's astonishing to me.

Romney always had issues dealing with people. One of my favorite Romney gaffes happened early in the campaign during a picnic with Romney volunteers in Pittsburgh, when PA was still considered quite competitive. The volunteers had brought cookies from one of the notable local bakeries (Bethel Bakery) to the picnic. The smart move would have been just to say the cookies were delicious or not say anything about them. Romney called them "7-11 cookies" implying they were cheap cookies from a convenience store. It just made Romney look prissy and out-of-touch.

Silly Jesus:;Do you have an argument as to why paying people to have more babies and not get married doesn't facilitate a welfare state?

Look, Jack. You can claim to be a "left-leaning libertarian" all you want, but when you quack like a duck, you're a goddamned duck. Republican governance 101: if you break the systems designed to keep a civil society functioning properly, you can point to the broken programs as proof that government doesn't work. You're playing human centipede with Republican talking points. The safety net systems have long been broken in the name of "cost savings" and "personal responsibility". They provide a crap lifestyle for making 8 babies and not getting married, as you so fairly and delicately put it. At the same time, we've allowed incomes to stagnate to the point that their already crap way of life would only become worse if they took a job at Walmart. Meanwhile, most of their benefits are structured perversely, because of Republican policy. If you don't like the way poor people live, then raise the minimum wage and fix the perverse incentives. Please, I'm begging you. The best way to force these lazy poors to work for a living is to make it financially attractive to work for a living.

The Dog Ate My Homework:Some people might think this is petty, but having waited tables and tended bar, I think this guy is spot on. It's absolutely amazing how differently people act when you're serving them. Lots of people are just as nice as they are otherwise, but at least as many completely change when they're in that position. And yes, it truly does say a lot about what a person is really like.

And even my kids know they're supposed to say "thank you."

I actually base my vote in local elections based on two factors, the issues and what service employees report about the candidates. I have friends and relatives all over the country who work in service, and it's interesting to see how well the 'how they treat service people reflects their character' theory holds up. John McCain and Barack Obama are both really nice to service staff, I've been told, but some other major political figures...yeah. Not so much. I could tell such stories of princess tantrums, entitled attitude-copping and tip-stiffing.

It feels so 'Downton Abbey' to realize that there are all of these over-educated, underemployed people waiting tables, serving drinks and sharing notes via the Internet. Sooner or later, you'll have to be a decent human being, at least in public, to be active in politics.

Coco LaFemme:I absolutely believe that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat people who are waitstaff, retail clerks, food service workers, janitors.....any job like that. Treat them like shiat, and I don't care how nice you are to me, your mother, or a gaggle of ducklings.....you're a dickhead.

Absolutely. Never underestimate someone else's power or influence, and never forget that other people see how you treat those who don't share your circumstances.

The true measure of a man is how he treats those who can do him absolutely no good.

I absolutely believe that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat people who are waitstaff, retail clerks, food service workers, janitors.....any job like that. Treat them like shiat, and I don't care how nice you are to me, your mother, or a gaggle of ducklings.....you're a dickhead.

gadian:I've been faced with a connundrum in the past. As I was raised in the south with a stereotypical southern grandmother, I say "thank you" any time anyone does something nice for me. Like when I'm at an event and someone with a tray happens by with drinks on it and allows me to take one or if someone just hands me a drink. I've been reprimanded by peers and employers for doing so. Apparently the people who work these sorts of thing are hired help who, professionally, wish to be invisible. Saying "Thank you" embarrasses them or breaks the professional wall or breach of contract with the catering company, what have you.

I still think it's right to say thank you, but I wouldn't want to do so if the paid ninjas would be offended by me doing so.

Huh. I do the same thing; I've never heard this rule. At the last Christmas party, I struck up conversations with the girl holding the bacon-wrapped scallops so she wouldn't walk away.

mgshamster:NotARocketScientist: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

I wonder how much of it has nothing to do with the poverty line. Probably only a small amount. When I was in the army, I didn't pay taxes on the income I earned while deployed. Nearly half of my military stint was in a war zone of some sort. So all deployed military aren't paying those taxes. They are a part of that 47%. Then I went to college, and the federal grants and scholarships weren't taxed. The GI Bill wasn't taxed. So all students who live off of grants, scholarships, or military education benefits aren't paying taxes. They are a part of that 47%. I just found out I was accepted into a PhD program (I start next fall, yay!), and with that comes a stipend for living expenses. I wonder if that will be taxed, or if grad students are all a part of that 47 percent.

Don't forget the elderly, who worked all their lives and now live off savings and/or social security. They're in that 47%. Hell, a family of five making 50 grand a year could avoid paying income tax with the right deductions. Basically, whether or not someone pays income tax is in no way an indication of how much work they do.

So reading some of that study, it's just saying that in Georgia welfare benefits declines faster than wages rises, meaning you get less than the value of your dollar that you worked, especially for wages much lower for what's even plausible for minimum wage. I'm not too sure what your point is, other than the state of Georgia is cheap, as I would expect a Republican state to be.

Silly Jesus:Weaver95: Silly Jesus:I don't think that the libertarian party has much of a chance of winning whether I am actively sucking up to parasites or not. I'll let parasite fetishism continue to be the specialty of you and your ilk.

Silly Jesus:What, exactly, do you get out of fellating parasites? Just their votes? Or does it make your heart bleed a little whenever you can force society to buy groceries / beer / lottery tickets etc. for the lazy and worthless? I mean, do you actually feel a sacred connection to these people? Or is it purely vote farming?

Oh this isnt' about me. this is about the GOP. well, the evangelical Christians too, I suppose. not that I actually WANT you to have a clear understanding of how/why the Republicans (and by default the rich elite) are going to continue to lose...it would be counter productive. nope. shine on you crazy diamond!

Turbo Cojones:Silly Jesus: NotARocketScientist: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

Does it bother me that so many people have no skills? Yes. Very much so. I pay for their laziness.

Here comes the derp...

It's just the natural outcome of capitalism. Wealth flows into a few hands, leaving the source of wealth in poverty. The game is in danger. Government redistributes wealth to keep the game going.

Silly Jesus:clambam: Silly Jesus: clambam: Silly Jesus: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

Wow, really? There's an actual academic study that confirms the welfare state is a slave plantation? I believe you! Shout it from the rooftops!

Essentially, yes.

Finding a job, wedding and stopping having kids are all discouraged.

Citation needed. It's funny how you folks can call a group of voters who essentially control electoral outcomes at this point a bunch of freeloading losers and then act surprised when they fail to vote the way you want them to. Has it occurred to you that, rather than them being parasites you think they are, you people might be just kind of stupid?

Here's the best article I found on it. A link to the actual study (PDF) is at the bottom.

You folks? What kinda folk am I?

So they aren't parasites? How so?

I'm stupid because the study confirms what I've been saying? Interdasting!

You seem smrt.

No, you're stupid because you think you can insult the people who determined the winner of the last election and probably all the important ones from now on and they'll still vote for you. That is either incredible stupidity or something akin to political Tourette's Syndrome. Under the circumstances you're probably better off forgetting about the issues and just concentrating on voter suppression, and outright fraud, 'cause you sure ain't gonna win on the merits. However, if it makes you feel better to express your hatred and contempt for the new face of America, by all means...

And yes, I will always think that the worthless are worthless. I'm glad that you are able to dismiss reality and allow your heart to bleed for them. The scourge on society that they are. Imagine the progress that we could make if fewer people were in the cart and more were pulling? And if people like you didn't hand out step ladders for people to climb into the cart....

see - this is great! you should make sure everyone in the room knows how much you hate poor people. that's just too cool for words!

mgshamster:NotARocketScientist: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

47% of US adults get a government hand out, but the unemployment rate is only 10-20%, so that means 27-37% of the country IS WORKING FULL TIME AND IS STILL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE. Doesn't that bother you at all?

I wonder how much of it has nothing to do with the poverty line. Probably only a small amount. When I was in the army, I didn't pay taxes on the income I earned while deployed. Nearly half of my military stint was in a war zone of some sort. So all deployed military aren't paying those taxes. They are a part of that 47%. Then I went to college, and the federal grants and scholarships weren't taxed. The GI Bill wasn't taxed. So all students who live off of grants, scholarships, or military education benefits aren't paying taxes. They are a part of that 47%. I just found out I was accepted into a PhD program (I start next fall, yay!), and with that comes a stipend for living expenses. I wonder if that will be taxed, or if grad students are all a part of that 47 percent.

stoli n coke:cameroncrazy1984: Silly Jesus: So having 8 babies while being unmarried and living off of a check from the government is "BECAUSE SLAVERY!!"?

I don't see anything in there mentioning slavery. Nor does it mention that having 8 babies is the norm for welfare recipients.

It's conditioned response. Years of talk radio and idiot relatives have gotten SJ to immediately associate "welfare" with "unmarried black woman with 8 kids who drives a Cadillac and has a big screen TV, paid for by taxpayers."

Atwater would be proud.

I *really* hope his attitude is common among the GOP. it will make things ever so much easier down the road.

I wasn't aware that I was running for office...or, if I were, that I'd be asking for the vote of the worthless.

make sure that when you mistreat poor people that you do so openly. because THAT will NEVER come back to haunt you later in life. I'm also hoping that this imperial attitude of yours is common among senior GOP officials. hey, it turned out great for the Romney campaign, right? gotta figure that being insulting dick holes towards most of the voters in the country will work in 2016.

Silly Jesus:Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

I thought this was an obvious troll, but it clearly had some good elements.

It's a familiar theme, the "libs! libs! libs!" buying votes, but inventing a GSU study makes it specific, and a good lie is in the details. The bit about the democratic slave plantation evokes emotion, as slavery does, and it's vague enough that it makes one wonder about the original study and how it's been derpified.

And you might have gotten away with it, too, except no fundie would name themselves Silly Jesus, and someone this deep in the derp would probably say "democrat slave plantation." They would also never remember the name of the university that did the study.

stoli n coke:dickfreckle: Former bartender here. I don't expect anyone to lavishly praise my concoctions (especially if it's just a Diet Coke), but a simple nod or even a verbal "thanks" is always appreciated as a common courtesy. If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd still be gracious to "the help." These people work their asses off. I know I did.

Guys like Romney never learned that lesson. For him, the world exists to serve him and he needs not show gratitude. People like that always got on my nerves (and they were invariably horrible tippers, no matter their personal fortune).

This. I'm friends with some of the bartenders at my local watering hole. After closing, it's not uncommon for them to complain about some rich a-hole running up a $300 check, and then leaving a tip of ten bucks or less.

15% is standard, 25% is classy, and 30% guarantees your drink is waiting for you before you get to the bar.

Plus, it's just a good idea not to piss off the people handling your food and drinks.

Pappas:Romney walks, talks, breathes, and lives the "whole 47% issue". It would have come out eventually... this was just a nice, neat little package.

At least we got to see the discomfiture of one of the pampered elite when he left his bubble and realized he was out in a world where people got to loudly and openly disagree with things he said or call him on his previous comments. Both Mitt and Ann.

clambam:Silly Jesus: Well, he wasn't wrong. A large percentage of the population is worthless...and that number is only growing.

A new Georgia State University study just confirmed what liberals love to deny...the welfare state is a democratic slave plantation. Keep the checks a comin' and the votes a rollin in!

Wow, really? There's an actual academic study that confirms the welfare state is a slave plantation? I believe you! Shout it from the rooftops!

It's not a "slave plantation," but it is dehumanizing*. I guess it depends on how much you give a shiat about your condition and having to rely on the government for cash.

...

For that matter, how does it feel to rely on your *employer* to not fire your ass because he can't afford that 3rd Lexus he's been wanting for his self-entitled 17-year-old daughter. I guess, at least, you get the sense of accomplishment from *earning* that check.

/*Having had to be on the state once before, I can tell you that, well, sir, I didn't like it.//YMMV